


And I laid me down with a will

by Castillon02



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, End of the World, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, but the character death isn't shown in the fic, detailed talk about how to commit suicide in an end-of-world context
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 11:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5965444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond knows where he wants Q to be when the world ends. He finds him at Q Branch instead. (Written for the h/c prompt "World Explosion.")</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I laid me down with a will

**Author's Note:**

> This year I'm challenging myself to branch out of my romance/humor comfort zone by trying to write to prompts on a hurt/comfort bingo card. This fic is what happened when I saw the prompt "World Explosion." 
> 
> Thank you to Snowyleopardess for the wonderful quick beta and to Ayrtonwilbury for the advice and encouragement while I was writing!

“You’re serious?” Bond asked.

Q nodded from his desk.

“Really?” Bond raised his eyebrows. “The Earth is going to explode and you want to spend your last days _here_?” He gestured around at the mad scientist’s den that Q called an office—at the bare concrete, steel shelves, and cold metal apparatuses.  

“My cats are here,” Q said, waving his hand at the telltale cat bed where an orange tabby was snoozing. “My favorite tea mug is here. There’s adequate food and drink and entertainment here. It’s more secure than my flat, which will probably be looted by one or more of the agents who live in the same building. Why not?”

Because it would be too awful for Q to die where he had worked, to be briefly entombed here before the Earth’s final vaporisation, instead of shuffling off safely in his bed like Bond had always secretly wanted for him.

Bond shook his head at Q and didn’t say anything. Q had helped him finish his mission even after MI6 had disbanded, had arranged transportation home in a world where most flights were now crewed by volunteers, and Bond had thought to return the favor—had thought that Q might need help to get home too, help navigating a London caught in the last throes of human violence. Maybe help staying safe until the end.

Only that wasn’t it at all. Q was fine. He had his bunker. He didn’t need—

“I had wondered,” Q said, straightening his glasses, “whether you would be here as well. If you wanted. I mean. I would understand if you had somewhere else you—”

“There’s nowhere else,” Bond interrupted, saving Q from his deepening blush. “My flat’s already been broken into. No booze left.” He had M’s bulldog in his rucksack, though, because of course no one had taken _that_.     

“Glad I rank higher than your looted flat,” Q said dryly, and stood. “Let me give you a tour.”

Despite his sarcasm, Q seemed pleased to show Bond around. He pointed out the no-longer-for-specimens refrigerators and the makeshift pantry filled with food; the kitchenette in a nearby break room with its microwave and stove; the chemical showers with their little cluster of scented hair products piled at one end of the tile floor; and, of course, the loos. He lingered over the large conference-turned-entertainment room, inviting Bond to sit on the leather sofa next to the cot he seemed to have been sleeping on, and showed him how to work the remote that interacted with the projector and the various consoles.

However, Q introduced the small storage-room-turned-gym with a grimace. The only thing in it other than a treadmill and some free weights was a new-looking punching bag in one corner, not even hooked to the ceiling yet.

“It’s not much, I know,” Q said, shifting on his feet and mostly looking at the wall.

Bond shrugged. “Good of you to anticipate that I’ll want to punch something,” he said.

Q darted a glance at him that said without words, _Yes, what a truly taxing mental effort_. _A double-oh wanting to punch something. Next I shall proceed to show you my times tables._  

Bond had a sudden image of Q if Bond hadn’t shown up, a Q with more than enough food for two, a new punching bag that would probably never be used, and no one to look acerbic at. “What’s the next stop on the tour?” he asked.

“The last stop,” Q said, and led him to a nondescript closet. “Every-body off!” he sing-songed in front of the door, a grim little smile on his face.

Bond knew then what would be behind the door.   

In perhaps their last technical briefing, Q showed Bond how to work the suicide equipment, because, as he said, “Dying via world-explosion is hypothesized to be very painful.”

There were guns—a Walther if Bond wanted it, or other varieties if he prefered something less personal. Shotguns were statistically most reliable, Q said, but he cupped Bond’s hand over the Walther and guided the cold barrel to the back of his head. It was an awkward angle, but not impossible. “You can go for the heart, or you can do it right here,” he said, tapping at Bond’s cranium, at the hindbrain kill-spot that Bond had aimed for so many times and had hit more often than not. “Don’t miss; it would rather defeat the purpose if you shot half your skull off and were still alive when the Earth took the rest of you.”

“I know how to shoot to kill, Q,” Bond said, but couldn’t help but smile a little at Q’s tutting.

“You’ve shot _other people_ ,” Q said. “It might be different when you’re doing it to yourself.”  

There were pills, too, and liquid drugs, and over two dozen exit bag kits all lined up in rows. “The most popular option,” Q explained, and took Bond through all the steps on the waterproof instruction card he’d tucked into the box with the gas tank and the bag and the hose. “I’ve made sure that everyone who wants it has got a helium bag for the day. I’ll be using one myself, I believe.”

 _I believe_. Always room to change your mind, up until there wasn’t.  

Bond felt a little better about not having decided between the sweet peace of the helium and the cold reality of his gun yet. Still: “Using it where?” he asked. “On that little cot in the entertainment room? Not the most comfortable final resting place.”   

Q blinked, frowned, and snapped his fingers. “My bed!” he said, and led Bond to a loading bay where a mattress, box spring, and assorted wooden framing lay propped against the wall. “I took the liberty of asking one of our last transport personnel to deliver it from my flat. However, it obviously has yet to be reassembled. I’ve been a bit—occupied.” He gestured at his head, which Bond took to mean _busy teaching people how to off themselves with a helium bag._

“Not expecting anyone else?” Bond asked.

“No.” Q shook his head, and the smooth calm of his face broke for a moment to reveal a yawing grief before closing back up again like water around a stone. “No, I’ve seen to everyone. Everyone who’s still around.”

“Then neither of us is occupied anymore,” Bond said. He hefted the two long sides of the wooden bedframe in his arms, Q scrambled to grab the other ends, and they set off for the entertainment room together.

He could help Q shuffle off peacefully in his bed after all. Not a bad final mission.  

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the epitaph of Robert Louis Stevenson, British writer and poet, 1850-1894; on his tombstone in Samoa: 
> 
> _Under the wide and starry sky_  
>  _Dig the grave and let me lie._  
>  _Glad did I live and gladly die,_  
>  _And I laid me down with a will._
> 
> _This be the verse you 'grave for me:_  
>  _Here he lies where he long'd to be;_  
>  _Home is the sailor, home from the sea,_  
>  _And the hunter home from the hill._
> 
>  
> 
> This is my first time writing angst, so constructive criticism is especially welcome! <3


End file.
